When it comes to our elected officials, perfection isn’t expected. They’re human after all – prone to mistakes, prone to saying things they shouldn’t, whether it’s in public or private.
However, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. And during the 2021 Black Lives Matter protests in Saratoga Springs, then-Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton crossed that line.
“Arrest those f___ers,” she texted Police Chief Shane Crooks while his officers were responding to a July rally that momentarily blocked traffic on Broadway.
Instead of sounding like a responsible public official, Dalton’s text messages sounded more like those of an angry blogger. She wrote, “I feel like I’m going to cry trying to hold it together,” “If someone doesn’t get arrested I’m going to lose my mind,” and “please please please pretty please arrest someone.” After learning that several activists had indeed been arrested and the protest had subsided, she responded, “I still have bloodlust, but great job.”
Dalton seemed to forget that the commissioner of public safety isn’t supposed to act like an enraged texter. The position is meant to oversee the police and fire departments, as well as code administration, animal control, and parking enforcement. Bloodlust is not a requirement, in other words.
It’s somewhat of a relief that Chief Crooks remained composed during Ms. Dalton’s outburst. However, this kind of behavior adds weight to activists’ claims that members of the city administration unfairly targeted them, even violating their constitutional rights. That’s why the office of state Attorney General Letitia James is conducting a civil rights investigation into these matters, which involves issuing subpoenas to Ms. Dalton, former Mayor Meg Kelly, and others.
Another important detail to note about this unfortunate incident is that while the texts and emails associated with it were released to the Times Union and other media outlets as part of a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, the city attorney denied the actual request from the attorney general’s office, citing FOIL’s exemption for materials related to an ongoing investigation. Instead, the city attorney’s office claimed to release these embarrassing communications “in the interests of transparency.”
We commend Mayor Ron Kim’s administration for going above and beyond the requirements of FOIL regarding matters of public interest. And we will closely monitor City Hall to ensure the same level of openness and accountability when the requested materials involve his own administration and the performance of Mr. Kim’s political allies, as opposed to former officials like Ms. Dalton, who lost in the 2021 mayoral race and has been a consistent critic of the mayor since then.
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